Large gas kiln unloading and electric kiln with whales, frames and teapots.

Well, it's October 19th and um it turned cold. Um and it's actually um windy and uh no rain though. We're hoping and hoping for rain since everywhere like us is very dry this year. but windy and cold and I'm unloading an indoor kil. So, my gas kil is firing right now. That's probably going to be the last firing of the actual season. So, I'll I'll video that. Uh, but this is an electric 10 cubic foot kila kil. Um, so I'm starting to fire my indoor kils. They give me such nice heat although my heat turned on too. So, it's the building was pretty cold. So, uh, anyway, it's toasty now with the gas stove on and also this kilm to be unloaded. So, let's have a look what we have in here. Now, I've got loads of mugs on the top, but underneath are vasees and teapotss. So, bear with me. I'll try not to show you everything, but there's some interesting pieces in this cuz I did it like the shake it up glaze video I did. Uh, so there's a lot of combinations that I haven't done in the Shake It Up video. So, you might have to see back to see a lot of them. How hot are they? Oh, that's good. Um, so these are my stilts. Um, I think I just showed this in a video. If not, I'll have to revide it cuz I probably deleted the video. But, um, but I just did a whole bunch of stilts that I made. Um, and uh, if I'll just make some more if I can't find that video. I did film making them. And these look really nice. This is black licorice with variegated blue over the top. And look how it ran almost to the bottom, but didn't actually flow over. So that's black with oatmeal over the top and maybe some variegated blue, too. And on the bottom, I did variegated blue and bright blue. So nice. And did a little fluting on the piece, too, so you can catch that in the light. Very nice. I like that. Well done. I thought I wanted to just try some new ones. Let's see if any of them run. Oh, we did. We got a run. So, I'll have to grind that little bit off. But I, you know, I've shown that in videos before. It's not hard to grind off stuff. Uh, but they're beautiful. Really nice. I actually raised the temperature to 20 225 when I normally do 22 222, but I don't think that 3° would have made much difference there. It still would have run a bit, but it meant that the pieces got much much hotter. Um, and I don't do much of a soak at temperature. Only 12 minutes. Maybe I'll cut that down to 11, too. I have a couple of orders in here somewhere and I'm not seeing them there. Oh, no, wait a minute. If I Yeah, these were them, I think. Yeah, there somebody wanted two mugs, but they wanted their name on the bottom and they turned out beautiful. variegated blue and oatmeal over the top of bright blue. He'll be happy about those. It's my neighbor just moved in, a new guy who's a carpenter called Jake. So, he'll be helping me when I need odd jobs to do around the studio. Very pretty. Okay, what else do we have that's uh shaking it up a bit? Folk art white and apple green on the bottom and apple green and oatmeal on the top. Very pretty. The g the gas gun's great. But I think when I start doing electric kale firings again, I always seem to feel like, oh, the colors are so much nicer. And that's what happens in electric hills. They just seem to get slightly brighter colors. And gas tails get very earthy colors. Very pretty. Again, stop saying pretty. All right. What else do we have? matte turquoise over white clay that's gone a sort of sand color just because of the glaze effect. And then folk art white and variegated blue and oatmeal over the top on the book. That's really nice. I haven't done that before. Folkart white. I don't usually put the variegated blue and oatmeal over the top, but I will again. speckled clay with apple green, matte turquoise over the top with oatmeal over the top of that. And on the bottom it was folk art white and apple green. Anything different? Here's one with tenu gold but almost in fact no flex with tenu gold is fleckless. Or is that fckless? I don't know. Matte turquoise, bright blue, and oatmeal over the top and just oatmeal over 10 gold on the bottom. That's interesting. No flex at all. I'll have to look. I know that you have to slow you have to slow the firing down, but I did. It was 145° an hour down. Um, but it's on thin, so maybe that's the reason cuz I'm always worried about food gold running. Same again here. Matte turquoise, bright blue, and oatmeal on the top. temp gold and oatmeal on the on the bottom. Oh, here's another temp gold, I think. No, this is licorice. So, this one is licorice on the bottom with oatmeal just on the bottom edge and then uh was it bright blue? No, I think it was variegated blue and oatmeal on the top running down a little bit. So, that really didn't look nice. Yeah. This one, this is the same again, licorice. And on the bottom, we've got bright blue and variegated blue. Licorice not on the top. Should put the light on. It seems a little dull. This was an old one that I had a blowout and I had to refire. I just refired it, but there was literally a blowout. And that's the pug mill I bought. Um, does not have a stainless steel barrel. And I think I'm getting some little bits of aluminum oxide in little clumps coming out of the pug mill with the clay now. It's a couple of years old, but I think the barrel has um deteriorates. And I I use stoneware clays, but a little bit of BMX 5 occasionally, and I think that might be the one that's doing it because they tell you not to use porcelain style clays with that pug mill. But it was just one blowout. But I'm going to have to be careful of that. But I think I'm just going to use the recycled clay for my fish and whales in future anyway. I have to make so many of those. This is pretty good contrast. The tender gold is really not fleck at all. The black licorice with the tical gold above is very pretty. I think the rest are going to be similar. So, let's go through these quick. Um, I got bright blue over matte turquoise on the bottom and then apple green over folk art white on the top. There's one with a little purple bright blue and oatmeal over the top. Or no, sorry, variegated blue and oatmeal over the top. And then on the bottom we got the bright blue here. That's the same. It's apple green all the way down. Just the regular glazing on that and then matte turquoise over the top. So it's very pretty green. Nice runs. Get the silk off. Nice runs over the fluting. So, so far only one's going to have to be ground. That's got some nice runs there, too. That's interesting. I'm not sure what that is. It's not matte turquoise, is it? Uh, I have another green that I use occasionally. It's kind of like a slopp. I wonder if that is it. Yeah, I'll have to I think I'll have to think about my notes which I don't take. I should have, but that's a different green. And I'm not sure exactly how I did it, but I have a bucket of green glaze. I call it my slot green glaze. It looks like it ran down in a line down there. I didn't see it. Oh, it missed me when I was doing that and a dribble came down from the bottom. Yeah, there's a little heavy piece there. But they're very pretty colors. If that's that slot grain glaze, I'm actually going to use it again. So, I'll do a specific test with that one cuz it' be nice. Um I've been building up this bucket of glaze by throwing all my slops in from my glaze rinsing buckets, my sponge buckets. So I'd never be able to do the game. Yeah, these are SS I made. They're working great. That's actually chun green there over the speckled clay. And that's pretty, but it's definitely not the same as that other one, which was here. And that's over white clay. So that's very it's all that's very semi matte even. So, time to do some experiments. I was going to use crystal strong crystal magic on a bunch of iron glazes as a test for a video coming up too cuz I've got a bucket of strong crystal magic which I never use and I've got to make a use for it. I also ran a test on my yellows by mixing two yellows together and it's working really nice. Where did that come from? That's a little mark of green there. I don't know. Another black dark blue. These are really nice. I have never done that before and I like it. I'll do it again. Another chun green. Better get a blue over chun green with bright blue on the bottom. Oh, there's another one. The mat. It's a semi matte. Oh, it's over the folk art white. So, I wonder if my regular apple green over folk art white is doing that. It's a potential. Yeah, I don't know. We'll have to do an experiment with that, too. This is really pretty. Great contrast. Licorice oatmeal on the bottom, but tu gold variegated blue and oatmeal on the top. But where are the flexcks? Because I glazed so thin, I think the flex decided to go on holiday. Same here. You can feel the edge of the glaze. It ran down so far. But that's why I glaze the chemical gold thin. But um another bright blue one. We always know that one comes out beautiful. Bright blue with a variegated blue oatmeal. This is an experiment I did which I will be doing videos on. I've been applying clay slops over the top of clay that's already almost dry, at least leather hard, um to build up bumps and textures because I'm thinking about trying to do some very rugged kind of organic pieces. I made one and my wife said, "You can't put it out. It looks so rough." I put it on my back shelves in my studio and one of the people coming around from the YouTube channel bought it. I liked it, but my wife said it was too rough to hold. Well, that's what somebody really liked about it. That blue one. And there's another one of the dark ones. There's the still. That's how they hold them up so you can glaze the bottom of your pieces. The next level down. So, it's teapotss and voses and a few more mugs. See if I can pull the lids out with the pots. Okay, here is a very nice teapot. Folk art white with matte turquoise and folk art white. And where the folk art white is over overlapped by the matte turquoise, we're getting that semi matte, very pale blue green turquoise, which I really love. So now we know how to get it. But will I remember? Better take a picture of these. Traditional teapotss have little holes in the lids to let the water out if you got a deep flange. So, you tip the teapot so the lid doesn't fall out of the pot. Um, but you need a hole to let the pressure out as you put the lid in cuz the bottom of the lid may go into the liquid. Here is apple green, matte turquoise, matte turquoise on the top. So, the apple green was put uh from the bottom up, I think. No, I think it was the bottom was done with matte turquoise and then I dipped apple green over the top of it. Dipped it in the apple green like that and then I dipped matte turquoise over the top. But whatever I seem to have done it, it turned out very pretty. I haven't made teapotss all year because I had so many teapotss. I think I had 19 teapotss left from last year. So, I just been selling those all summer and now all I have is left is a few brown ones. Folk art white. Really nice creamy variegated blue oatmeal over the top. Oh, this one did some running. Going to do some grinding on this one. The green ran down, but look how beautiful it turned out. Still got to grind the bottom of it on that one. The lid sits a bit high on that one, but it still fits nice. Good stripes. Zebra teapot. Green zebra. The apple green does run and I knew that, which is why I decided to stilt those ones. Is this the right lid? I guess so. This was done like the shake it up mugs. Shake it up glazing with the f um oatmeal on the bottom over I think 10 mu gold on the bottom. But it's a pretty teapot. See how the lid you can tip it. Let's risk it. Oh no, it did come out. You're supposed to be able to tip it and the lid doesn't fall out like it's holding there like that. But not very well. So So you got to hold the lid when you pour this one. Who? Everybody would hold the lid anyway. But I know when I was taught my teacher said to make a flange deep and then put a hole in it and then when you tip the teapot the lid doesn't fall out, which it's not doing there. So I guess it doesn't sometimes. And also about the spout to thin it out so you don't get any drips or on the bottom too. I think I made 14 teapotss at least. Another one. Same glaze actually. Oatmeal over 10 gold with no flex. Matte turquoise and variegated blue and oatmeal over the top. Came out nice. Got some voses glaze like the teapotss. That's a pretty pretty nice club there. It is the time for bringing in flowers because it's getting cold. I've still got a lot of flowers in the garden. We haven't had a frost yet, but they are shivering. And then purple. variegated blue and oatmeal with bright blue on the bottom and matte turquoise too. And then more shake it up glazing. And that looks like I think it's the dark blue overlapping the matte turquoise is my guess there. Yeah, I think we've got matte turquoise with dark blue overlapping it. So you get that really pretty. And then oatmeal is dribbling down here which gives it a gloss again. But you get this really sort of matte blue in the center which is really pretty. The light's catching that. Yeah, I forgot to make some notes this time. That'll This is This color combination always sells. Bright blue, floating blue I think they call it in mastering cones glazes. variegated blue out of mastering conics blazes and oatmeal over the top. The oatmeal has tin in it which gives you that intense white. Um it's not through crystals. It's just through pigmentation when you use tin. Look at that. No crystals. 10 gold was disappointing. I think it's cuz it's thin. There's that matte blue again. So, matte turquoise with um I think it's the dark blue over the top of the matte turquoise and then oatmeal over the top of the dark blue. I was going to dump my dark blue in a video or two back I was talking about it, but I think it's working better now cuz it was because of the variegated blue over the top of dark blue was always crawling. It's just that one glaze combo that doesn't like to go together. But that is worth keeping that matte dark blue. Okay, that's the end of that level. There's the bottom of the kil, too. So, more teapotss, a large bowl, and I don't think there's any mugs down here. Just some voses. This is one of my regular large bowls that I do in the variegated blue and oatmeal over the top of the bright blue. So, these consistently turn out really good and better in the electric kil and in the gas kil. I do a little squiggly slit trailing with glazes over them just to give a little interest to the surface. [Music] This is one with purple, dark blue, variegated blue, and oatmeal over the top. A really purple teapot with dark blue on the bottom. Oh no, it's bright blue on the bottom, variegated blue and oatmeal on the top, bright blue, variegated blue and oatmeal with some really nice, very subtle runs down there, but controlled. Really nice. See, my spout actually curls down and it's thinned here at the bottom so that the drip just breaks off when you're pouring and you don't get the drip running down the actual front of the teapot. I don't think that's that important actually. But um but if it runs like crazy and dribbles down, but if you just get one little bubble of water and it just kind of hangs there and falls off, that's the best scenario you can hope for really. And Robin Hopper, of course, said just dab some butter over the rim and it breaks the surface tension when you're pouring tea. There's a couple of tenu gold with no f there's some beginning flex in there. Maybe I didn't stir it up properly. I don't know. But black on the bottom, tenu gold in the middle with variegated blue and an and oatmeal over the top. And here you've got beginning some flex too. If you can just see that. It's not very good light in here today. Don't know what I'm doing wrong here. But uh but anyway, Tiku gold, oatmeal, and black on the bottom. Chun green on the bottom with purple. Where they overlap, you get that little bluish hint. That's nice. And then variegated blue and oatmeal on the top. And the normal bright blue variegated blue and oatmeal doing its usual crystal stuff. Really nice. See, I rubbed the glaze off the bottom of these. Um, it's got apple green on the top with matte turquoise and then variegated blue, I think, on the bottom of that one. And it looks nice, but it didn't run, which is good cuz I did I rubbed the glaze off the bottom of that one. And this one is one of the shaky up glaze tiles. There you go. Very creamy with the oatmeal over the tenu gold there. Yeah, I like that. It's got some nice chattering texture underneath there. The last one is a dark blue on the bottom with bright blue overlapping. And then you've got the variegated blue and oatmeal on the top there as well. And I think I did dark blue on the bottom and then dipped it in oatmeal. Or maybe I dipped it in bright blue over the top of the dark blue there. But you can see the chattering coming through as well on the piece. Textural. Okay, that's the end of that kil. [Music] October today and we just had rain. Rain? What was that? We haven't had rain all summer. So, it's been a drought and my flowers are sort of hanging in there. But right at the end of the season, we actually managed to get some rain. So, but uh in next week we'll probably have a frost. Oh. This kil is like the end of season firing uh for things I can't really make in the winter. Um so there's a whole bunch of frames in here, a lot of whales and whale sculptures. Uh and then there's a whole bunch of functional work on the bottom in the shake it up glazing thing that I just did. uh the electric firing on as well cuz I was running out of those mugs and also the 10 gold with the dots that I was doing. They're all selling right off the shelf. So, uh so those two uh I'm going to experiment with um astrology and crystal magic too instead of my oatmeal doing that. Um and I think bad light. Let's see if we can get out of that. Yeah, the sun's in the wrong place. This was a perfect firing. What's that? It's just a little bit of clay. It's not a glaze blister. It's a bit of clay in there. I didn't see it. But the glaze is beautiful on that piece. Another one of those. I should have four of those. These in this firing, which is the Icelandic um cuz I actually sold all my dinner wear of that as well. This was such a good season. Um these are for those whale sculptures. I'm not sure just exactly how I'll position this one, but I always frame these another whale sculpture. So, these will get framed up. But that blue turned out really nice, didn't it? I did. I put some variegated blue coming down like this from there. And it doesn't show up at all. I'm surprised. Or maybe I forgot to do it on that one. Oh, it didn't show up on the other one either. Oatmeal must have soaked it right in. And there's another one. I just cleaned up my uh kiln room here. Swept the whole place out so it's nice and clean again. There's another one. That variegated blue just bleached out on all of the pieces. And yet on the blue where I put the variegated blue, it stayed. But on the oatmeal, it just soaked right in. Here is the first of many frames. My frames stay really flat. And I think that looks really nice. I think I tried to get the blue and the green to fade together. Didn't work. So, um, there's too much. Whereas the blue over the green doesn't really All the frames that I've got in here are going to be probably in these colors, so I don't need to linger on those. Jackie did a whole bunch of frames in here, too. That one is that powder blue glaze I have, and I did variegated blue over the top as well for the sculpture. This one is reverse of the other one, I think. So, the other was green on the outer edge. I don't know which one I like best. They're both the same, I guess. Here's one that I didn't do any green on. I have to say, this is a good firing. Everything's been really perfect so far. I'm going to be making carved scrido tiles to go inside all of these frames. This one has a little wiggle to it on one side. Just a little bit. When you see it all flat on the wall, it won't show up. Of course, very rich. No oatmeal on this one. Let's see if these look as good. Wow. Look how that ran down. It's like lava. That's black licorice with oatmeal over the top. Here's a very delicate one, too. It still slipped off the bottom of this one. So, I'll just have to sand it a little bit on that edge there. Or maybe use it myself. Look at that. Nice mug, too. I can redip it in glaze and it'll fix it. And this one's interesting because it's tenwu gold over the top. Oatmeal and variegated blue over that. And then the licorice with the oatmeal and a little tiny run that I'll have to grind there. These ones look really good in the electric kilm and they're great in this kiln. So, this kil has been working perfect all summer. It's my best summer firing this kale. And it's a Bailey uh 342 24 I think they call it or 32 24 34 cubic feet but 24 stacking I think it is. Put on the light. It's just so bright. Two of these should say four of these. Two more of the blue ones. Really ran down hard on that one, too. small enough to sell. >> There you go. >> Got some more teapotss. >> And this is uh dark blue and then bright blue, variegated blue and oatmeal in the upper part. Nice run. This is a speckled clay version of it, which looks actually as good as the white clay. Oh, look at those rods. I love it when you get that yellow line right at the edge there, which must be the iron that's in the actual variegated blue, giving you a little yellow brown. Yep, that one fits. So, this is the lid on this one. I had the lids mixed up nicely. I do this teapot. It sells better because it's more stable, but I like the other one shaped better. Couple more nice mugs there. One of the blue ones. [Music] And here is a little licorice teapot. The light is terrible. Maybe you can see it better close up. And then other little bars there. and a couple of shake it up glazing here. I'll put some pictures at the end of the video because you can't see them very well in this sunlight. So sunny outside that I'm tempted to fire this kiln again. I'm building up another bis firing, which I could do, but we'll see how cold it gets. This is for my a home for my cactus at the studio over there at the gallery because it's outgrowing its little piece. And uh so I thought I'd make him another home. It's actually warped a little bit. Doesn't matter though because it's for my own cactus. It's huge in the window. I'm wondering if that will be big enough, but we'll see. [Music] [Music]